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Social Theory: Collective Memory

Social Theory: Collective Memory. Bin Xu Assistant Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies Florida International University. Cultural Memory ( Aleida and Jan Assmann ). Characteristics of Cultural Memory. Concretion of identity Capacity of reconstruct the past Formation/formality

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Social Theory: Collective Memory

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  1. Social Theory: Collective Memory Bin Xu Assistant Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies Florida International University

  2. Cultural Memory (Aleida and Jan Assmann)

  3. Characteristics of Cultural Memory • Concretion of identity • Capacity of reconstruct the past • Formation/formality • Organization • Obligation • Reflexivity

  4. Implications from the Cultural Memory Approach • The distinction between communicative and cultural memory (better than other distinctions) • Study of the relationship between communicative and cultural memory • Compatible with cultural object approach

  5. Erll’s Semiotic Theory of Memory • What is semiotics? The study of signs • Semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for • Syntactics: the formal or structural relations between signs • Pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters

  6. Memory as metonymy and metaphor

  7. Three Dimensions of Cultural Memory

  8. Systems and Modes of Cultural Memory

  9. Critiques • Lots of concepts but few arguments • Not sure about uses of the Cultural Memory theories except for a few obvious ones (media; cultural objects)

  10. Olick’s Dialogical Memory • Historical sociology of memory has to be historical. (Elias) • Sociology of mnemonic practice. (Bourdieu) • Memory as dialogue. (Bakhtin)

  11. Olick’s Dialogical Memory • Article “Genre Memories and Memory Genres” • Dialog: utterances take place within historical contexts and contain memory traces of earlier usages. • Memory: 1) history of memory; 2) memory of memory/commemorations. • Case: German commemoration of August 8.

  12. Critiques • Sociology of mnemonic practices: ironically, focused on utterances and discourses instead of actions. • Olick’s use of Bourdieu’s practice: Where are class and habitus?

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